Acceptance
by HentaiTenshi
Summary: Hakkai finally takes the first step to accepting himself as youkai. AN: Part 2 can be read at http:hentaifanfics.


**Title**: Acceptance  
  
**Author**: Hentai Tenshi  
  
**Warnings**: None. OMG! Are you in shock???  
  
**Rating**: G?  
  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own Gensomaden Saiyuki...which means I do not own Hakkai, or youkai Hakkai for that matter. Saiyuki is Copyright © 2000 Kazuya Minekura/Enix - Saiyuki Project - TV Tokyo...  
  
**Notes**: This is my first attempt at Saiyuki fanfiction...this is also a gift fic, one of two. Enjoy! Please review   
  
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Hakkai's hand trembled as he lifted it to pull the string on the bathroom light. He was not sure he was ready for this yet, but it had been two years. Two years, and yet, he had never once tried, had never had the desire to look himself in the mirror. Not his true self. This smiling man in front of him was not who he truly was.  
  
Round green eyes looked back at him as the light was pulled, flooding the small plain bathroom in its harsh glare. Doubts flittered across his mind, filling his consciousness, making his breath stop in his throat. What if like before, he went berserk? He remembered the pure rage, the clarity he felt then was frightening. Like looking into a clear pool and seeing your death in vivid detail, only it wasn't his death he saw. He didn't know if he could control himself, but he... He had come to the conclusion that he had to accept it. Accept himself, really. That was what it all boiled down to in the end.

The schoolteacher was gone; he was no longer Cho Gonou, he was now Cho Hakkai... But who was Cho Hakkai? Was he the mask of humanity he wore now, or... His hand lifted to the small metal clamps on his left ear. He bit his lip and pulled them off, fingernails digging into his hand as he waited for ... he wasn't sure what he was waiting for.  
  
There was a noticeable shift to the air; his body ached slightly, sounds becoming sharper, nose more sensitive. He licked suddenly dry lips and winced slightly as the sharp copper of blood filled his mouth as the muscle passed over elongated incisors. He opened his eyes slowly, not sure what to expect, but what he saw made his breath escape his lips in a long slow exhale.  
  
The youkai staring back at him in the mirror was not what he had imagined; the few times he had let himself dwell on it. Slanted green eyes, cat like pupils stared back at him with an expression of bewilderment and a deep sorrow. Long pointed youkai ears peeked out from slightly longer, shaggy brown hair, falling over his forehead and along his temples. He turned his head slightly first to the left, then the right, lifting a hand to trace sharply clawed fingertips along the vine that curved up and rested against his high cheekbone. The claw cut through the skin over the vines below his left eye, making a small line of red appear and well against the pale skin. He watched the small drop of blood slide down the side of his face almost in fascination, the hand posed unmoving above the vines.  
  
As the drop of blood curved to pool against the corner of his mouth, he flicked out his tongue, tasting the blood as he had before. His eyes lifted, looking over his face a moment before visually tracing the vine as it curved down and around his throat. Moving his hands to undo the buttons of his shirt, he opened it, staring in disbelief, as the vine seemed to hug his torso, twisting and winding down, branching off here and there and finally down to curl intimately around his slim hips and lower. He looked at his hands, seeing that the vine also curled around his hand and fingers, the tip resting against the palms.  
  
He blinked, lifting his eyes again to the mirror. The initial shock over, he felt no bloodlust, no need to kill, only the sorrow always hidden behind the mask he no longer wore, and the surprise, the bewilderment at his form. His true form. He felt somehow... freer as youkai. His feelings were amplified; he felt everything from the slight breeze as he moved to the heat from the bare bulb above his head.  
  
Lifting a hand, he continued to watch the reflection in the mirror as he pulled the string to switch off the light again.

-Owari-


End file.
